Pioneer vaccine

Researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia have developed the first mRNA vaccine against C. difficile, a persistent bacterium that spreads through spores and commonly infects vulnerable populations. “Where most vaccines are spurring one’s immune system to create specific antibodies, mRNA vaccines were a perfect candidate for a C. difficile vaccine because they can be easily packaged up to elicit the immune system to do more than one thing to protect against a bacteria, virus, or fungus,” Drew Weissman says.